Snakehead (25 page)

And none of them knew that inch by inch, the bomb known as Royal Blue was already making its way down the pipe that would carry it to the seabed and below. That the sun and the moon were moving, inexorably, into an alignment that wouldn't happen again for another century. And that a madman was waiting to press the button that would unleash chaos on the world.

Five hours until midnight.

And in an army camp south of Darwin, Alex Rider gave his answer and the final preparations began.

E
THAN
B
ROOKE HAD HANDPICKED
ten soldiers from the Australian SAS for his assault team, and at least some of them needed no introduction. As Alex joined them in the hanger that was going to be used as a briefing room, he saw Scooter, Texas, X-Ray, and Sparks waiting for him, and suddenly he was back where this had all begun, on the beach near Swanbourne. He wasn't sure if he should be glad or annoyed to meet up with them again.

Scooter was equally uncomfortable. “I'm really sorry about that trick we pulled on you, Alex,” he said. “We all felt bad about it. But we had our orders…”

“Colonel Abbott asked us to pass on a message,” Texas added. “No hard feelings. And if you ever come back to Swanbourne, we'll throw a proper Aussie barbecue.”

“With no hand grenades,” Alex muttered.

“You got it.”

Alex looked at the other soldiers. None of them seemed to be older than twenty-four or twenty-five, meaning there was an age gap of just ten years between him and them. Maybe that was why all of them had accepted him. Like Alex, they had changed into night combat gear. A couple of them carried balaclavas. The rest had painted their hands and faces black.

The hanger was vast and empty. A blackboard had been placed in the middle with a row of metal benches. Alex sat down next to Ben. The others took their places with Scooter facing them in front of the board. Once again, he seemed to be in charge. Scooter was looking tired. He seemed to have grown a lot older since Swanbourne—or maybe it was just that he knew how much was at stake. “We haven't got a lot of time,” he began. “Nor do we have much of a plan…so this won't take long.

“We're parachuting in from about eight thousand feet. I know a boat would have been easier and less conspicuous, but by the time we got there it would all be over. Anyway, it's always possible our friend Major Yu has radar.”

He turned to the blackboard. Someone had taped up what could have been an engineer's drawing of two oil rigs—one square, the other triangular, joined by a narrow bridge. Each of the rigs had three cranes and one of them had a helicopter pad, represented by a square in a circle. Scooter picked up a stick, which he used as a pointer.

“All right—listen up!” He tapped the picture. “This is what we
think
Dragon Nine looks like. We don't
know
because we don't have any pictures and we haven't had enough time to take any. All I can tell you for certain is that it's a semi-submersible platform, which means that basically the whole thing floats on the surface of the water, connected to the seabed by a dozen steel tendrils.

In case you're wondering, each one of them is about a mile long.”

“What happens if they break?” someone asked.

“Nothing much. The whole thing will float away, like a ship without an anchor. At least that's something we don't have to worry about.” He pointed again. “The processing platform is on the left. Dragon Nine isn't in production, so the whole area will be quiet—and that's where we're going to start. We'll land on the helicopter pad. You'll recognize it because it's got this big letter H…”

Scooter turned his attention to the square-shaped rig.

“This is the drilling platform,” he continued. “Once we've assembled and checked everyone's there, we'll make our way across the bridge, heading for the main derrick…that's the metal tower over the well hole. And that's where we're going to find Royal Blue. Our friend Major Yu will be using some sort of system—maybe guide wires—to lower it down to the seabed.”

“So let's blow it up,” X-Ray growled.

“It's our first target,” Scooter agreed. “The power unit will be our second. But we can't take anything for granted. Yu could just as easily be using a submarine to take the bomb down. That's why Alex is here. Our job is to find the control room and get him there. He can deactivate Royal Blue—but no one else can, so if he gets shot we might as well pack up and go home. You hear what I'm saying? I want you to watch his back. And his front and his sides.”

Alex glanced down. He understood what Scooter was saying and why he had to say it, but he still didn't like being picked out in this way.

“I'm afraid this mission isn't as easy as it seems,” Scooter continued, although Alex wouldn't have said it looked simple to begin with. “We've got no idea where the control room is. There are five different levels, two separate platforms. Yu could be on either. You've got to think of Dragon Nine as two metal cities. They've got their own storage depots, dormitories, mess halls, and recreation rooms as well as fuel tanks, desalination units, pump rooms, engineering blocks, and all the rest of it. Somehow we have to find our way through all that until we find what we're looking for. Then we have to deal with Royal Blue. And when we start, it's possible that we're going to be spread out all over the place. We're lucky that there's not too much breeze, but there's no moon. Just try not to fall into the sea.”

He paused. Eleven silent faces watched him from the two rows of benches. Alex could feel the clock already ticking. He wanted to be out and away.

“So what do we have on our side?” Scooter asked. “Well, first there's the element of surprise. Major Yu thinks he killed Alex, so he'll have no idea we're on our way. And also, there's the question of timing.” He looked at his watch. “Yu can't detonate the bomb whenever he likes. He's tied into the one hour starting at midnight. That's when the earth, sun, and moon are going to be in the right position. It's nine o'clock now, and we're only two hours from drop-off. That means we'll have one hour plus to find Royal Blue before he can throw the switch. And there's something else we know, thanks to Alex. The bomb can only remain at depth for twenty minutes. So it's not there yet. And if all goes well, it never will be.”

He looked around.

“Any questions?”

There were none.

“We've got to move quickly and quietly,” he concluded. “Take out as many of Yu's people as we can before they know we're there. Leave the guns and grenades for as long as possible. Use your knives. And find the control room! That's what this is all about.”

He set down the pointer.

“Let's go.”

Everyone stood up. Ben had Alex's parachute—black silk, for a night drop. He'd packed it himself before the briefing, and now he helped Alex put it on, pulling the straps tight across his chest and around his thighs.

“It's probably a bit too late to ask you this,” he muttered. “But have you ever parachuted before?”

“Only once,” Alex admitted. That had been eight months ago. Alex had landed on the roof of the Science Museum in London. But he decided not to go into all that right now.

“Well, don't worry if you miss the target,” Ben said. “The sea's warm. Conditions are perfect. And with a bit of luck, there won't be too many sharks.”

The Australian SAS men were already moving. Ben strapped on his own parachute, and the two of them followed the others out of the hangar. There was a helicopter waiting for them on the tarmac—the same one that had picked Alex up in the jungle. The Chinook CH-47 was the ideal machine for this night's work. Often used to ferry troops or supplies, its wide rear exit was also perfect for parachute drops. It would fly them to the target at 190 miles per hour and at an altitude no higher than 8,500 feet. That wouldn't leave long to deploy the chute.

Ben must have been reading his thoughts. “We're using static line,” he said. The static-line deployment system meant that they wouldn't have to pull a rip cord. The parachutes would open automatically.

Alex nodded. His mouth was suddenly too dry to speak.

They climbed in the back. In the jungle, Alex had used a door just behind the cockpit, but this time the whole rear section of the Chinook had been opened, forming a ramp big enough to take a jeep. Alex looked in. The pilot and the co-pilot were already in their seats. There was a third man, a flight engineer, cradling a 7.62-millimeter M60 general-purpose machine gun, which must have been bolted on at some time during the day. Alex hoped it wouldn't be needed.

The twelve of them took their places. There was a long row of seats facing each other on either side of the fuselage. Although they were made of canvas stretched over metal, they reminded Alex a little of dining room chairs. Normally, the Chinook carries thirty-three men, so at least there was plenty of room. Alex sat next to Ben. It was clear that everyone expected them to stick together—although how they would manage that, parachuting out into the night, was something they hadn't discussed. Scooter leaned over and clipped Alex's rip cord to a silver rail running all the way to the cockpit. The pilot pressed a switch and slowly the rear door closed. A red light flashed on, the helicopter lurched off the ground, and moments later, they were on their way.

It was already dark, and there was nothing to see out of the windows, which were too small anyway to provide much of a view. Alex could only tell their height from the feeling in his stomach and the pressure in his ears. The SAS men were sitting silently, some of them checking their weapons—machine guns, pistols with silencers attached, and a wide variety of vicious-looking combat knives. Next to him, Ben Daniels had nodded off to sleep. Alex guessed he'd be well practiced at taking a catnap whenever he needed it, conserving his strength.

But Alex couldn't sleep. He was in a Chinook helicopter with the Australian SAS, on his way to attack an oil rig and defuse a bomb before it caused a tsunami. And as usual, he was the only one who hadn't been given a gun. How had he managed to get himself into this? For a moment, he remembered walking with Jack Starbright on the Rocks in Sydney. It seemed a long, long time ago.

Below them the Timor Sea was black and still. They were rapidly approaching Indonesian airspace. The helicopter droned on through the night.

 

The light turned orange.

Smoothly, one inch at a time, the great door at the back of the helicopter dropped open, revealing the black rush of the night behind. Although it was true there was no moon, the sea seemed to be shining, as if with some natural phosphorescence—Alex could see it glinting far below.

He hadn't even thought about the parachute jump until now, but as the reality hit him, his stomach lurched. The simple truth was that he wasn't some sort of daredevil who enjoyed the prospect of hurling himself from eight thousand feet in the dark. Right now he would give anything to be back in London with Jack.

Well, all he had to do was survive the next hour. One way or another, in just sixty minutes this would all be over.

The door had gone down as far as it could and clicked into position. It was jutting out of the back of the helicopter. A short walk into nothing. “I'll be watching you,” Ben shouted. With the roar of the wind, only Alex heard. “Don't worry! I'll stick close…”

“Thanks!” Alex shouted back the single word.

Then the light went green.

No time to think. Because of his position, Alex was going to be the first out. Maybe they had planned it that way. He didn't even hesitate. If he stopped to think what he was doing, he might lose the resolve. Three steps, trailing the cord from his parachute behind him. Suddenly the blades were right over his head, thrashing the air. He felt a hand on his shoulder. Ben. He jumped.

There was a moment of complete disorientation—he remembered it from the last time—when he couldn't quite believe what he'd done and had no idea what would happen next. He was falling so fast that he couldn't breathe. He was completely out of control. Then the parachute opened automatically in the slipstream. He felt the jolt as his descent slowed. And then the peace. He was floating, dangling underneath an invisible silk canopy, black against the black night sky.

He looked down and saw the oil rig. He could only make out its vague shape—two geometric islands with a narrow corridor in between. There were about twenty lights, flickering and still tiny on the twin platforms. By joining them in his imagination, Alex was able to draw a mental image of Dragon Nine.

He twisted around and saw the helicopter, already far away, and beneath it the eleven black flowers that were the other parachutes. It seemed to him that the Chinook was surprisingly quiet. If he could barely hear it at this altitude, perhaps Major Yu would have heard nothing below. Just as Scooter had promised, there was no wind. The sea was utterly flat. Alex didn't need to steer himself. He seemed to be heading in exactly the right direction. He could make out the white
H
in the middle of the heliport.
H
for happy landing…at least, that was what he hoped.

There are three stages to a parachute descent. The raw fear of the jump itself. The sense of calm once the chute has opened. And the first panic as the ground rushes up. Alex reached the third stage all too soon, and that was when he realized that he had drifted off course after all. Maybe he had been overconfident. Maybe some sea breeze had caught him unawares. But suddenly he found himself with nothing but water below him. He was drifting away from the triangular processing platform. Urgently, Alex tugged the two cords at his shoulders, trying to change direction. He was plunging toward the sea. He couldn't let that happen. The splash might give the others away. Worse than that, he might drown.

Alex jerked and writhed helplessly but at the last minute another breeze caught him and carried him over the lip of the drilling platform and onto one of the decks. He had been doubly lucky. The deck was wide enough to allow him to land safely, dropping to one knee and folding in his parachute in a single movement. And the area he had chosen was like a metallic courtyard, enclosed on all sides. With a bit of luck, he would be completely out of sight. What about the noise of landing? No worries there. He had landed on a bumpy, uneven surface, close to some sort of electrical generator. The noise of the machinery would have covered the crash of his feet as they made contact with the metal surface.